


breathless yesterdays

by karikes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: ???? idk what else to tag this, Academy Era, F/M, Fluff, Romance, this does kind of skate the line between M and T but I'm erring on the safe side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 05:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11155527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karikes/pseuds/karikes
Summary: Nyota meets him in the cafeteria, smiling brightly enough that Leonard thinks that he’s probably, definitely screwed if she fucksandsmiles like that.AU where it’s McCoy and Uhura who meet at the Academy and fall in love. Except it maybe doesn’t start with the whole dating thing. A constant: Jim knows jack shit about Nyota’s love life, even when it includes his best friend.





	breathless yesterdays

Nyota slams her ankle into her desk as she’s getting up from her desk in Intermediate Phonology. Which would be fine, if she didn't promptly twist the same ankle on the steps of the linguistics building not two minutes later. She groans, because she has too much homework to be dealing with the overstressed cadets in Medical right now. Her ankle is throbbing, though, and she really ought to make sure nothing is seriously wrong.

Nyota limps across campus, cursing her luck. She’s always been well coordinated. She took ballet from four to twelve, and gymnastics from eight to seventeen. There is absolutely no reason for Nyota’s body to rebel so dramatically on the one day she has an enormous pile of homework to do.

She sits in the waiting room for twenty-four minutes, surrounded by coughing cadets who have no concept of personal space. She only manages to write a paragraph of her essay on the cultural differences across the Alpha Quadrant before the nurse calls her name.

Nyota favors her non-injured leg as she follows the nurse into an examination room. She sits there for a further twelve minutes before a doctor appears.

He doesn’t look up from his padd for a full minute after the door has hissed shut behind him.

Nyota clears her throat.

“Damn it, do you have the Flaxian flu too?”

The doctor’s eyes are hazel. His voice draws out his vowels despite how quickly he barks out his words, and Nyota thinks his accent is Southern. She’s seen him before, but she can’t place him.

“Nope. If you had read my chart, though, you might have figured that out.” Nyota smoothes her uniform skirt over her thighs.

“Listen, I haven’t slept in twenty hours.” His stubble is really hot, if she’s honest with herself. _He’s_ just really hot if she’s being completely honest. _Where does she know him from?_

“I can’t sleep for the next twenty hours because of homework, Dr. You’re Too Busy to Tell Me Your Name, and I would just like to make sure my ankle is okay. I’ve already spent way more time here than I would like to.”

The doctor blinks and looks down at his padd quickly. “Sorry, Uhura. I’m McCoy. I need your boot off, then.”

Nyota tugs her boot off and carefully peels her sock away from her skin. McCoy’s hands are warm, his fingers firm as he rotates her ankle slowly. She breathes in sharply when he pushes on her ankle with his thumbs. He scans her quickly after that, and nods.

“You’ve sprained it, that’s all. Keep your weight off of it, and you should be fine. Come back if your pain persists.”

McCoy’s eyes are back on his padd, typing furiously as Nyota replaces her footwear.

“When do you get off your shift?” she asks, as she is replacing her bag on her shoulder. It’s been a long time since she got laid, and the doctor is hot enough she’s willing to maybe postpone her homework a little longer.

His eyes are sharp as he looks at her again. “I was supposed to be off two hours ago, but there’s an outbreak of the Flaxian flu, so I won’t be off for another four at least."

Nyota smiles, slow and flirty. It’s been a long time since she reeled someone in. She hasn’t forgotten how to do this, though.

“If you want some stress relief after you get some sleep, my comm number is on my file.” She limps to the door and turns as it opens. “That was a blatant invitation to fuck me, in case you missed it.”

A quick flick of her eyelashes, and she is down the hall, not waiting to see McCoy’s face. He seemed blunt enough that ploy ought to work. Nyota still can’t remember where she’s seen him before, which is odd, but her homework is calling, so she shakes her head and limps to the library.

*

He doesn’t call her that night, which is fair. He’s sleeping, probably, or dealing with that flu. It’s two days before her comm chirps and she doesn’t recognize the number.

“This is Nyota,” she says a little breathlessly. She’s actually homework free on a Friday night for the first time all semester, and it’s not going to last for long, but she’s enjoying the quiet of her dorm room for once. Gaila is out getting drinks with her friends. She had been disappointed Nyota had refused to join her, but Nyota had stood firm.

“This is Leonard,” McCoy drawls back. “I see we’re on a first name basis now. Isn’t that nice. Should I start callin’ you darlin’ or is that invitation for fucking you still open?"

Nyota sits up straight. “It’s still open. My roommate is out tonight. I don’t know when she’s coming back.”

“Well, I know for a fact my roommate isn’t coming back tonight. He’s off on some command track bonding trip in Beijing right now. I’m in Building 4A, room 66-89.”

Nyota sighs. “I’m in the same building as you, just three floors down. I can be there in like five minutes.”

McCoy, Leonard- whatever, looks somehow even sexier in his undershirt and uniform pants. Nyota stands in his room, squinting at the pile on one of the beds.

“My roommate is a slob,” McCoy says. “Well, he cleans once a week, but he didn’t clean before he left, so I’m stuck looking at his mess.”

Nyota nods, smiling slightly. “So, uh, you have condoms?”

McCoy glares at her. “I’m a goddamn doctor, Uhura. Of course I have condoms. Now do you want to talk all night, or are we gonna get naked?”

Nyota leaves his dorm room two hours later, sweaty and satisfied. “This was nice,” she says, as if McCoy isn’t still naked while she snaps her bra on; like he hadn’t been pulling her hair ten minutes before while he ground into her. “I’ll see you around.”

“Sure thing,” McCoy replies. “Be careful on that ankle.”

And that’s it, really. Nyota has no plans to see him again. He was a good lay, and it was just what she needed. She isn’t expecting to hear from McCoy.

It’s not like she minds, though, when he calls her the next week and asks if she’s free that night. Or three days later, or four times in the second week.

Gaila sniffs Nyota suspiciously on the third week. “So who’s making you so satisfied?”

Nyota smiles and arches an eyebrow. “Doctors have nice hands. Seriously Gaila, we’re just having some fun. Nothing’s really happening.”

But they continue to see each other after winter break and all throughout the spring, meeting in each other’s dorm rooms several times a week to fuck each other’s brains out.

*

One night, in the middle of Len going down on her, she wonders when he stopped being McCoy, or even Leonard. It’s not like her brain is working properly anyways when he flicks his tongue like that, but she decides to ask him about it when she’s getting dressed.

“So I guess I’m calling you Len now,” Nyota says, as she zips up her skirt.

“Is there a problem with that?” She kind of wants to dive back in bed with him when he looks at her, his gaze as heavy and slow as his words.

“No, I was just noticing. Have a good night, Len."

*

Nyota debates if seeing him outside of sex is a good idea for the next four days. She hasn’t dated anyone since her first year at the Academy. Jamison was a mistake, start to finish, but it’s been a year and a half. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try again with someone who values their work above relationships.

“Are you going to be here over the summer?” She asks in between kisses the next night.

Len mouths her neck. “I will.” He kisses her collarbone. “Why?”

“I was kind of wondering if you wanted to keep seeing each other.”

Len pulls away and stares at her, his hands resting just above her ass. “I’m going to need something more than that, Nyota. That’s vague and I don’t know what the hell you mean when you say it like that.”

Nyota sighs as her thumb traces his lips. “Do you want to maybe get coffee or something? Talk about our families? Date each other? I mean, the sex is really nice, but I don’t know. It’s been awhile since I dated someone and I think we would be compatible. Namely that we always place our careers first over any personal needs.”

Len stares at her for three long seconds in which she wonders if she’s just fucked up the best non-relationship she’s ever had. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to get coffee tomorrow before my shift.”

Nyota laughs and tugs at the closure on Len’s pants. “I guess that’s settled then.”

Her hands slide down his hips, taking his boxers and his pants off in one swoop.

“I guess it is,” he says a little breathlessly, and then she’s kneeling in front of him and he doesn’t have anything coherent to say after that.

*

Nyota meets him in the cafeteria, smiling brightly enough that Leonard thinks that he’s probably, definitely screwed if she fucks _and_ smiles like _that_.

They take their coffee out on the quad. It’s a rare day of full sun, now that summer is almost upon them, and Leonard can’t help but notice the way Nyota’s skin glows in the light. He realizes that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her in anything but artificial lighting, all their meetings taking place in either his dorm or hers.

“So,” she says, and she smiles again. “I have a sister and a brother. Both of them are older than me and are married. I have two nephews and three nieces.

Leonard nods. Nyota seems like she would be an aunt. “I’m divorced,” he says bluntly. It’s better to lead with the punchline, he figures. Beating around the bush doesn’t help anyone.

“Oh.” There’s surprise in her voice, but she isn’t walking away, so that’s something. “How long were you married, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Seven years. We were stupid and rushed into it too young.” Leonard doesn’t look at her while he says this, and then he does, and his gaze is so intense, as if he is daring Nyota to judge him.

“Any kids?” He should have expected it, really. It’s kind of obvious.

“No. Jocelyn never wanted any.”

“Do you? Want any kids, I mean.” Her eyes are soft brown, and it’s like he’s seeing them for the first time.

“Someday. One or two.”

She answers the question in his eyes after she swallows her sip of coffee. He watches her throat work as she swallows, aware of every movement she is making.

“I think I’d like one or two kids someday, too. I’m planning on being well established in my career, though. Of course, I’ve got to find someone to have kids with to start, but you know. Someday.”

Again Nyota smiles, and again, Leonard’s brain whispers some stupid shit that he shouldn’t be thinking.

“You look really beautiful today,” he says. He can’t take it back now that he’s said it, but it’s not what he really wants to say. Nyota looks beautiful every day.

“Thank you,” she says. “You look beautiful every day.”

 _Dammit_ , Leonard thinks. “Thank you,” he replies, but cannot stop the flush that rises to his cheeks. He’s not a fucking teenager anymore, goddamnit. Why the hell is he behaving like it? It’s not like he hasn’t slept with Nyota Uhura a hundred times, memorized the feel of her thighs beneath his hands, and tasted the salt on her breasts.

But it is different, here in the sunlight, without any dimmed lights to hide behind. There are clothes on and people around them, and it’s more intimate than her sliding over him, her hair tracing a path across his chest. Leonard feels exposed.

“Len,” Nyota says, and breaks his train of thought.

“Nyota,” he says, tracing the curve of her cheek with his eyes, his thumb rising of its own accord to follow.

“I’ve got a super intense internship starting in four days, but all my evenings are free except for Mondays.” She leans into his touch, maybe consciously, maybe not.

“I’m still working ridiculous hours at Medical,” Leonard says. “But I generally have Saturdays free all day.”

“Hypothetically we could go to the beach on Saturday, then,” Nyota grins.

_God, her smile is going to slice him open and leave him for the dogs to eat._

“We should, darlin,’” Len says easily.

Nyota finishes her coffee, her lipstick staining the rim of the cup. The purple is the exact same shade as the hickey she left on his neck last night.

“I like it when you call me darling, Len,” she replies. She isn’t lying, even though she kneed her boyfriend in the balls for calling her that when she was seventeen.

Leonard downs the last bit of his own coffee in two gulps. The cafeteria really makes awful coffee, and he takes his black, so there’s no frills to disguise the terrible replication.

“Alright, darlin.’” Leonard stands and reaches a hand down to help Nyota up. She takes it and stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

“Keep calling me darling and I might be late to my orientation meeting,” she whispers into his ear.

“I’ll go easy on you.” It’s his turn to smile, now, quick and blinding. Nyota kisses him on the lips this time. It’s tender, without the intent that has always lain behind their kisses before. Leonard actually makes a noise when she settles her heels on the ground again.

“I’ll see you around, Len,” she calls as she hurries across the quad. “Comm me!”

*

Leonard calls her at 0104 when he gets off his shift that night. He isn’t sure she’s going to pick up, but she does, almost immediately.

“Hey,” she says, her voice sleep-soft. “I just woke up to go to the bathroom, so you’re in luck. Otherwise, you would have had to leave me a message.”

“If you want to sleep, I won’t keep you.” Leonard listens to her exhale and the rustle of her sheets as she moves.

“No, it’s fine. What did you want to tell me?”

“I wanted to ask-” Len stops, his throat working. He hasn’t liked anyone since his marriage and subsequent divorce. Look at him, _liking_ someone like he’s still in high school. It’s a little difficult to talk about this when it’s been so long and there’s a failed marriage under his belt.

“Yes?” Nyota asks. Her voice sounds so sweet, like all the snap and crackle has been taken away from her by sleep. She still sounds strong, the shape of her consonants rich in his ear.

“You’re not seeing anyone else, are you?”

She laughs a little. “No, Len. The sex is too good and you’re too pretty for me to be dancing around with anyone else.”

Leonard fumbles for his words again. He’s never been very good at this, and maybe that’s part of the reason Jocelyn and him fell apart.

“So what you’re sayin’ is that you like my cock?” _Shit, not the way he wanted to phrase that. This is supposed to be about feelings. They already have sex down pat._

Nyota laughs for real this time. “Yes, Len, I like your cock. I also like you and I don’t want you seeing anyone else. Is that what you were trying to ask?”

“Yes.” He sighs in relief. Maybe Nyota can do more of the talking. That might be good.

“Goodnight, Len. See you in a couple of days, or maybe tomorrow night if you’re free.”

“G’night, Nyota,” he replies, and then there’s a small click as she closes her comm and he’s left listening to nothing at all.

Leonard does not know how long he sits there in his dorm room, thinking about the sound of Nyota’s voice. Jim rolls over twice, but does not wake. Leonard wonders if maybe he should tell Jim about Nyota. He decides to ask her the next time he sees her.

*

It turns out Nyota is a pretty private person who doesn’t really like mixing her personal life with her career.

“I don’t like drama or prying eyes,” she says, sliding her feet through the sand. “People are nosy and tend to get involved in other people’s relationships and fuck them up. It’s not like I won’t kiss you in front of people or anything, I just don’t really want to make any official declarations. I like you, Len, I really do. Do you understand?”

Len looks at the seam of her swimsuit bottoms wrapped around her thigh. He thinks about how he and Jocelyn had rushed through their courtship and marriage in less than a year, eager to tell anyone and everyone about their absolutely forever and always love.

“I get it, darlin.’ I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

So he does. He tells Jim he’s seeing someone, but she doesn’t want attention. Jim always throws his arm around his shoulders and calls him Bones in an attempt to weasel it out of him, but Leonard keeps his mouth shut and takes Saturdays off to spend with Nyota.

They go to the beach again, but also to the art museum, and to the conservatory. Leonard just likes being with Nyota, so he doesn’t really care when she picks the next place for them to go. Sometimes they just sit on their padds in a park, her feet tucked under his thigh, unmoving for hours until one of them needs to use the bathroom or gets a cramp.

Leonard sees her smile before he falls asleep every night and he knows that he is royally screwed. Jim tells him that he’s a lot less grumpy since he started getting laid regularly, and Leonard decides to stab him with the hypo currently in his hand. Jim keeps his mouth shut from then on.

*

Nyota doesn’t tell her mother about Len until the fall, refusing to give in to her mother’s demands to bring him home on winter break.

“I told my mom about you and I think it was a mistake,” she says as she traces her fingertips over his chest.

Leonard shifts slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she says, and meets his eyes. “My mother is a nosy woman and told me you had to come for Christmas. I told her it wasn’t like that, at least- not yet.”

“Do you want it to be?” Len’s voice is husky and low. Gaila is out for the night and not coming back, so he’s crammed between her and the wall in her tiny bed. He doesn't mind.

“I kind of like it being just us with no one to pressure us,” Nyota says, and her hand pauses. “I like keeping you to myself.”

“Should I tell my mama about you then, even if no one’s going home with anyone for Christmas?”

She kisses him and nods. “I think I’d be more okay meeting your family than you meeting mine. They’re a little on the wild side.”

“Was that you inviting yourself to my Christmas?” Len teases her even as his hand slips between her legs.

“Len-” Nyota gasps. “We’re having a conversation right now.”

“That we are,” he replies. “You were saying?” His eyebrow rises as he smirks.

“Len- stop for a second, please.”

Leonard, ever the gentleman, stops. “What, Nyota? I don’t have a problem if you want to meet my mother.”

“I don’t know,” she says, and kisses him again. “I’ll think about it.”

And then his hand slipping between her thighs again and they don’t talk anymore after that.

*

Nyota walks up to him two weeks later while he’s on duty in Medical.

“I’ll go home with you for Christmas,” she says. “If you come home with me next year.”

Leonard pauses with a tray of hyposprays in his hand. “Alright, darlin.’ See you tomorrow.”

They still have not said that they love each other. Perhaps it is because it does not need saying when they move so well without words.

*

Nyota holds his hand in the shuttleport and all the way to Georgia. She only pries their sweaty hands apart when they’re leaving the shuttle. Leonard’s grandpa picks them up from the shuttleport. He offers a hug to Nyota instantly, and she takes it, despite their lack of acquaintance.

“So you’re the gal Len gets quiet about. It’s a first for him. Never known him to shut up when he liked someone.” Horatio McCoy squints at Nyota. “You must be somethin.’”

Len nods. “It’s good to see you, Pop.”

It’s Leonard’s mother that actually makes Nyota’s back pop, she hugs her so tightly.

“Good Lord,” Louisa exclaims. “I am sorry, honey. Are you alright?”

Nyota nods. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. McCoy.”

“Louisa,” Len’s mom says with a smile. “You’re my son’s gal. No formalities from you.”

“Okay,” Nyota says. Len’s hand is on the small of her back. It settles her, a reminder of the physicality that brought them together.

She mutters in Klingon at dinner when Len’s grandma asks her how long she and Len have been together. It's been over a year now, if they're counting sex, but not really seven months if they're counting their daylight hours together.

“A little over a year,” she says firmly.

“You've been keeping this treasure all to yourself for that long?” Grandma Titus gives her grandson a long look. “I've never known you to be quiet about a girl.”

“That's what Pop said,” Len replies. He does not elaborate.

“Well, you shouldn't have!”

Nyota ducks her head and leans into Len’s shoulder. She doesn't feel like they need to explain themselves.

*

Louisa looks at her later, while they're sipping sweet tea on the porch. Len is inside, talking with his father, who’s a nurse.

“How did you meet my Len?"

Nyota shifts in her chair and looks at the lawn. “I sprained my ankle and went to Medical to make sure I was okay. Len was my doctor that day. I thought he was really handsome and told him my comm number was on my file if he,” she clears her throat delicately, “Wanted a booty call when he got off his shift.”

Louisa laughs. “Did he take you up on it?”

“Yes,” Nyota says simply. She doesn't want to say anymore about sex with Leonard to his mother.

“Jocelyn really fucked him over, y’know.”

Nyota starts at the harshness suddenly coming from Louisa’s mouth.

“He doesn't talk about her. I figured as much.”

“He'll tell you when he's ready.” Louisa taps her nails on her glass. “So Len tells me you're in xenolinguistics. I take it that's fancy talk for a lot of alien languages.”

Nyota smiles. “You’re correct in your assessment.”

“Which one did you say something in at dinner?”

Nyota crosses her legs. It’s a balmy 23 C in Georgia, despite it being December. It’s a relief after so much fog and cold in San Francisco.

“That was a dialect of Klingon.”

“Aren’t we their enemies?” Louisa cocks her head.

“Best way to get to know your enemies is to lie down in bed with them,” Nyota says. “They only offer the one dialect at the Academy, though. I taught myself the other two.”

“How many languages do you know?”

Nyota doesn’t feel self-conscious about the number, but she knows other people behave funny around her when they know. She hasn’t even told Len or her own mother how many languages she knows.

“Forty-nine.” It’s kind of bending the truth, because several of them have multiple dialects she’s fluent in, and she’s nearly done learning two more.

Louisa whistles.

“Languages just make sense to me. They’re like math, really. There’s rules and different ways of solving a problem but arriving at the same answer.”

“Goodness, Nyota honey, is there anything you’re not good at?” Louisa stands, and Nyota joins her, only an inch shorter than the older woman.

“Piano. And getting a decent amount of sleep.”

Nyota’s piano teacher had been an awful old man. She had purposefully not practiced because she hated him so much. She had fallen in love with languages around the same time, anyways, and told her parents she would rather have French lessons than piano lessons. The sleep thing is entirely the Academy’s fault.

“I’m glad you came,” Louisa says as they step inside.

Nyota does not doubt that Len’s mother is telling anything but the truth.

“I’m glad I came, too,” she replies. She really is.

*

Len raises his eyebrows when she appears in the doorway of his father’s study. “Did my mother clean you out and hang you to dry?”

There’s a mostly empty glass of whisky in his hand. He looks actually relaxed, and it’s maybe the first time since Nyota met him that she’s seen the tension gone from his shoulders.

“No, your mother was nothing but courteous.” Nyota smiles, her careful one that she only uses when they’re around other people.

Henry McCoy lifts his chin at his son. “Go on to your lady, now, Len. I’ve had enough to drink tonight anyways.”

Len rises, placing his glass on the table in front of him. “G’night, Dad.”

“G’night, Len. Night, Nyota.”

“Goodnight Henry,” she says softly, and reaches her hand out to touch Len’s torso.

The bed in the guest room has incredibly soft sheets and just the right heaviness in the blankets. Len sighs as he toes off his shoes.

“You sure your family is the crazy one? Are you drowned in all the McCoy?”

Nyota shakes her head, her ponytail flying. “Your mom asked me how many languages I know. I haven’t even told my own mom, but I told Louisa. Is that weird?”

Len loves it when she says something in different languages. He’s a little in awe of her tongue, if he’s honest with himself. He knows Nyota is smart, but he hasn’t thought about how many languages she actually knows.

“Do you wanna tell me?”

“Fifty-one,” Nyota says, pulling her dress over her head. “I told your mom forty-nine, though, because I’m not completely fluent in the last two.”

Leonard is looking at her with something like love in his eyes. “Can you say darlin’ in all of them, though? That’s the hundred million credit question.”

“Not every language has the same concept of endearment as Standard, Len.”

He watches while she takes her hair down. “How do you tell someone you love them in Vulcan?” He asks suddenly. “Or do those hobgoblins not have a word for love?”

“ _Ashaya du_ ,” Nyota says. Her eyes are trained on him.

“How do they say that stuff with nothing in their voice? Robots have more inflection than that. If you’re gonna tell someone you love them, say it like you mean it.” Len hasn’t moved to take a single item of his clothing off. He’s still staring at her like he wants to worship her.

“I love you,” Nyota says, even though neither of them need the other to say it. Len knows she means it, as surely as the earth rotates the sun.

“Jocelyn always held that over my head. Said if I loved her I wouldn’t leave her. It’s not like I was doin’ the leaving, though.”

Nyota steps closer, the skin of her feet sticking slightly to the floorboards. “I’m not going anywhere. Come to bed, Len.”

Len doesn’t have to be begged.

*

He whispers that he loves her into the hollow of her neck when he thinks she's asleep. She isn't.

*

Nyota catches Denobulan shingles in the spring, her immune system weakened by her consistent lack of sleep.

Len is furious at first. “How could you have been so goddamn stupid?”

Then he is silent, stalking around her in the exam room, the hypo in his hand creaking from how tightly he's holding it.

At last, he looks at her. “You are exempted from all coursework for a week. Doctor’s orders. You are goin’ to lie on your bed for the entire week and you are goin’ to sleep as much as you can. If you so much as touch a language dictionary, I will sedate you. Darlin,’ you need to take better care of yourself.”

It's not like he has room to talk, but Nyota knows Len will brook no argument when he's like this. She nods.

He brings her soup and sits with her while she lies on her bed, aching. Gaila moans that she has to wear more clothing in the privacy of her own room. Leonard tells her that he’ll drag her pretty green ass across the quad if she doesn't stop yelling when Nyota needs her rest.

Gaila closes her mouth but pouts to Nyota when Leonard leaves.

“Why does your boyfriend have to be a doctor, Nyota? Why couldn't he be a normal person, who frets normal amounts?”

Nyota reaches for her padd. It's not studying if she reads Vulcan literature.  “Len is an excellent boyfriend. Leave him alone.”

Len pries the padd from her hands at 1607 and gives her another hypo to help with the swelling in her legs.

“Feelin’ any better?” His eyes don’t lift from hers.

“Some,” she replies. “Shouldn’t I be in Medical right now?”

Len’s mouth twists slightly. “You’ve got a mild case and it’s not contagious. So long as I’m checking up on you, you’re fine, darlin.’”

“Okay,” she whispers. Her mouth feels gross, but all she wants is to kiss Len right now. They haven’t had sex in eight days.

“I’m not kissing you when you’re sick, Nyota. Stop starin’ at my lips and hopin’ for some action. You’re too weak for that right now.” Len’s voice is gruff despite the tenderness in his hand as he strokes her cheek.

Nyota groans and turns her head into her pillow. “Maybe it’s been over a week since I got some _action_.”

“Maybe you aren’t with me just for the _action_ , Nyota.”

“No, but it’s nice,” she says, still turned away from him. “I feel weird not touching you as much as normal.”

Leonard leans in. “When you’re better, I’ve been wantin’ to try something.”

Gaila doesn’t catch the rest, but by the subsequent intake of breath Nyota emits and the release of pheromones, she bets it’s something really good.

*

Len goes home with Nyota for Christmas this year, despite her nervousness about how rambunctious her family is. It’s fine, of course. Nyota’s mother makes Len eat huge amounts of food. Her sister wants to hear all of Len’s doctor stories, of which he only tells the funny ones. Nyota’s mother, Asha, is a doctor too. She shares a few of her own. Nyota’s youngest nephew decides that he’s the best person to climb on, and actually cries when it’s bedtime because he doesn’t want to leave Leonard.

Nyota lifts one shoulder and smiles in amusement. She says something in Swahili and all the adults in the room laugh. Len looks at her questioningly, but she waves her hand.

“I’ll tell you later, Len.”

For some reason, her nonchalance riles him up. He and Nyota haven’t really fought before, and he should have fucking known that their breaking point would come, but it shouldn’t be about his inability to speak sixty languages. Leonard knows enough Andorian to ask and reply to basic questions, and still remembers high school French even though he hasn’t had a chance to speak it in years.

The next time Nyota leans into his touch, Leonard doesn’t lean back. She seems confused.

“What’s wrong, Len?” She’s a little drunk, so her words aren’t as crisp as they usually are.

“What’s wrong is that you left me on the outside, Nyota.” Leonard practically spits her name out. He always calls her darlin’ this late in the day.

“What?” Nyota fumbles a little at the hem of his shirt. “Take your clothes off, Len. You’re overdressed for the occasion."

Leonard firmly removes her hands from his person. “You had some joke with your family and wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

“Oh, that was nothing. I just said that Henry was riding you like a bull elephant in heat.” She steps out of her pants and pulls her shirt over her head. “Please, Len. You know I love your hands.”

Leonard grits his teeth and stares at the wall. There’s a framed print of some alien landscape on it, purple trees jutting towards the green sky.

“Nyota, why is it always about sex with you? Damn it, I’m trying to say something and you are not listening.” He enunciates every syllable, forcing his voice to tighten around his g’s.

“It is _not_ always about sex,” Nyota says, her hands as sharp as her words as she takes her bra off.

Leonard knows they shouldn’t be doing this at Christmas with her family not five steps down the hall. He doesn’t care right now.

“Well, it doesn’t feel that way,” he snaps. “And I don’t appreciate being condescended to.”

Nyota grabs angrily for his old shirt that she appropriated as a nightgown some time ago. “I haven’t been condescending, Leonard. Stop acting like a child just because I didn’t immediately let you in on the joke. It’s not a big deal. Also, can we stop acting like I’m the only one with a libido here, because I can’t even count how many times you’ve booty called me in the last month alone.”

Leonard’s hands tighten. “Nyota, just because I barely speak three languages doesn’t mean I’m fucking stupid. You shut me out at goddamn Christmas! In front of, and with, your family! You didn’t include me, Nyota. Two fucking years, and you didn’t think anythin’ of it. Don’t even talk about booty calls, Nyota. Do you want to check my comm inbox? Literally all of the messages are from drunk you talking about my hands or my cock.”

Leonard had had warnings about Jocelyn. They had not fallen apart over the course of a couple months. It had been years for them. He’s riding on his anger now, desperate for Nyota to understand what he’s saying and just as desperate for her to prove that she’s no different from his ex-wife. This feels worse than Jocelyn.

The look in her eyes is unreadable. She doesn’t say anything, just stares at him. Leonard stares right back, his fury riding high on his shoulders. He is not going to speak first.

When Nyota finally says something, it’s not what he’s expecting. “What languages do you speak besides Standard?” She whispers, all the bitterness gone from her voice.

“Andorian and French,” he spits. Her shoulders may have softened, but he is not moving a single inch.

“ _Je ne pense pas que tu es stupide._ I don’t think you’re stupid,” Nyota says, before switching to Standard. “Being a doctor kind of requires a certain level of intelligence. I’m sorry if you feel that I’ve treated you any other way.”

“You have,” he says bluntly. “And that’s not an apology.”

“Will you forgive me for making you feel less than, Len? I genuinely didn’t mean to.”

He looks at her again. His anger is simmering down to somewhere sunset colored.

“I’ll forgive you if you stop bringing up sex every time we get vulnerable,” Len says gruffly.

Nyota nods.

Jocelyn was bruise purple, discolored and misshapen as she pushed herself into his skin.

Red.

Leonard sees red when he looks at her, and it’s not his anger anymore. That’s cooled over and gone. He sees her ponytail swishing across the high collar of her cadet uniform; the color of her favorite lipstick smeared ever so slightly as she kisses him. Red is the color of her laughter, bouncing rich and deep in corridors and turbolifts; thrumming in his blood when he looks at her. Red is knowing just the right angle to lift her hips when he slides into her; the gasp she lets out as he settles into her body.

Red is her toenail polish, curling in his white sheets and padding across the floorboards of his childhood home. Red is the tomatoes in her endless salads and the flash of light on her roommate’s hair. Red is breathless yesterdays and hoped for tomorrows that Leonard knows will disappear when they graduate, but still clings to even as he clings to her brown body and crimson heart that beats slow and steady in her chest

He doesn’t say any of this.

“Sex is kind of where we started, Len. Every time we take a step forward, I want to look back at the beginning. It’s me measuring how far we’ve come. It’s not meant to be a step backwards, not in the least. I love you, Len. I don’t want to fight with you. I forgive you.”

Red is the color of his fear of losing her. Red is knowing that her toothbrush is blue because her niece Alejandra picked it out for her. Red is seeing death every day and choosing to step forward into her arms. Red is the only color she doesn’t own lingerie in, because she refuses to match with her uniform, and she wears it more often than civvies.

“I don’t want to fight with you either.”

Red is the color of dying stars. Leonard hopes fervently that they’ll get a supernova and not a black hole. He knows it’s stupid and reckless, and still, his boots move towards her; and still, she smiles at him; and still, he cannot breathe when she looks at him like that.

*

Len can’t let himself think about Nyota when it all goes to shit and they’re shipped off with no warning, no goodbyes, just orders. He’s too busy looking after Jim to think much about Nyota’s assignment, but she’s going to graduate with full honors, so it’s likely she’s on the _Enterprise_ as well. He’s got his own duties, and he can’t leave Jim behind, so he puts Nyota out of his mind temporarily.

Jim’s whining about his vaccine and Len can’t believe he’s friends with this man sometimes, the way he acts like a child about the silliest things.

Seeing Spock is again is weird, and not good at all, but he remembers _now_ that he does actually know who that bastard is. He’s Nyota’s teacher from last semester, who assigned ridiculous amounts of homework and exchanged a million articles with her. Nyota always glowed after visiting his office hours and actually talked about a paper the commander assigned while Len was going down on her. They hadn’t fought over it, because Len had actually thought it was kind of hot.

Still, Jim needs to be kept out of sight from the pointy-eared bastard. And then it’s Jim, Jim, Jim, and some more Jim, and he and Nyota can barely glance at each other in all the chaos.

Fierce pride wells up in Leonard when she takes over the lieutenant's position on the bridge. He does not say a word, though. They still haven’t discussed making their relationship public.

Nyota listens to Spock and him converse, breath caught in her throat when she hears that Doctor Puri is dead. She’s proud that Len is taking his place, but knows that this will mean he will have even more obligations before they can see each other again.

She offers Spock what little comfort she can give as his friend and narrows her eyes at Jim’s exclamation over her name. It’s not like Jim should care, what with him staring at Spock’s ass and all.

*

Nyota is strangely tender when she turns to him after Nero is defeated and they’re out of danger.

“ _Tout va_ _bien?_ Are you alright?”

“‘M fine,” Len mumbles, his legs aching from standing for so long. “Pike’s goin’ to live, and we’re all alive.”

The amount of paperwork he still has to do is ridiculous, and he can’t imagine the backlash Jim is going to get from Command, but he just wants to sleep.

“Are you sure?” Nyota asks, and every eye on the bridge is watching them.

Leonard sighs and rubs his eyes with his hand. “You want to do this now?”

“Leonard,” she says, stepping close to him.

Jim’s eyes are widening. “Bones, what the hell is going on?”

Leonard sighs even deeper. “If you insist, Nyota.”

Jim stands up. “What the fuck, Bones? You knew her name all this time?”

Nyota clears her throat, her fingernails resting on the hem of her dress. “He’s known a lot more than that,” she says.

Leonard lets her step even closer. Her hand slides into his.

“What the actual fuck, Bones? Uhura?” Jim is turning a strange color. Leonard is uncertain what to do exactly at this moment.

Nyota decides that it’s a good time to start talking in Vulcan, which Leonard wasn’t aware Jim was awake for. However, Jim appears to be holding his own as the clipped words fly thick and fast.

Sulu has the oddest expression on his face, so Len knows he took Vulcan at the Academy too, but Spock’s face nearly sends Len off the deep end. The alien’s right eyebrow has disappeared into the line of his weird bangs and he looks like he’s constipated.

Len looks at his girlfriend, who is clenching his hand so tightly he’s having trouble feeling his fingers, and his best friend, whose face is surprisingly normal looking.

His hand is itching for a hypo to stab into someone’s neck right now.

“Captain,” Nyota says a moment later, “My private life is none of your business. You should count it a privilege I decided to tell you at all.”

“Bones is my best friend. You don’t think I had even the slightest right to know that you two have been fucking this entire time?”

Len grits his teeth. “Jim, I think we need to talk privately.”

Nyota finally lets go of his hand. “Yes, Jim,” she hisses. “Let’s take this somewhere private.”

They end up in Jim’s quarters, because they’re closest to the bridge.

“You want to tell me what the fuck this is?” Jim says, the moment they’re all inside.

“Len and I are together, and you ought to be calmer about this,”’ Nyota says, her voice anything but calm.

“Bones?” Jim waves a hand. “So you didn’t think it was important to tell me that I’ve been hitting on your girlfriend, or whatever the hell you two are, for years?”

“You’ve been hitting on her?” Len’s fingers clench _._ He could use a goddamn hypo right about now.

“She literally said nothing about anything to me. Uhura is really beautiful and smart too! She’s the only one who got a higher grade than me in Xenobiology! Bones! I would be an idiot not to ask her out!”

Leonard takes a deep breath. Nyota crosses her arms and waits.

“James Tiberius Kirk, you should have stopped the first time she told you no. Now, please, will you leave us the hell alone? Nyota is private and she asked me to respect that. So I fucking did. Now, are you done? Or are you going to continue to be a child about two goddamn adults living their lives without informing you of every detail?”

Jim blinks twice. “So you are together? Dating? Or just sleeping with each other exclusively or what?”

“Len is my boyfriend,” Nyota says, uncrossing her arms. “And he has been for some time now. He will not be discussing our sex life with you under any circumstances now that you are aware of our relationship status. Is that clear?”

Jim and Leonard both nod. It’s not like Leonard had any plans to do so. He already knows Nyota will rip his balls off if he does.

“Good. Is there anything else you need from me, Captain Kirk?” Nyota’s voice has remained at a smooth tone this entire time, but now it switches to a slightly harsher one.

“No, I think I’m good,” Jim replies. “Now, uh, duty calls.”

*

After Jim’s poured two glasses of whisky down his throat that night, he gives Len this look.

Leonard shrugs. “Nyota asked me not to tell you. She’s Nyota Uhura. You don’t say no to her. I mean, you know how Jocelyn fucked me up. Nyota was the first good thing to happen to me since you, kid. I wasn’t gonna let her go just because I wanted to be selfish.”

Jim shakes his head and smiles. “So Uhura hugging Spock was all friendship, huh?”

Len nods. “Although, I will say, I think he’s the only one who could give me a run for my money. That hobgoblin is really smart.”

“Yeah,” Jim says, shifting in his chair. “I know.”

Len squints. “You’ve got the hots for a goddamn Vulcan. Oh my god. I want zero details. Zero.”

“I guess we’re in agreement, then,” Jim says. “No talking about our love lives.”

Leonard nods and stands up. “It’s been a rough twenty-four hours. I’m going to go talk to Uhura.”

“You do that, Bones,” Jim replies. “I think I’m going to go get some sleep.”

*

Nyota lets him into her quarters immediately. She’s in one of his old shirts and her hair is down.

“Len,” she says quietly. Her eyes are watching him so carefully.

“Nyota.” Leonard is probably going to fall over if he doesn’t sit down right this moment. The exhaustion has been lingering at his temples for the past couple of hours has hit him like a hovertrain.

Nyota helps him undress, his hands useless after clutching a medical scanner all day. She takes him into her arms, wrapping her leg comfortably over his hip.

“Sleep,” she says, sliding in closer to his chest and kissing him gently.

Leonard is asleep within seconds.

*

He wakes to Nyota’s hand sliding into his boxers, and it’s not like he would mind, but he is technically on alpha shift and he doesn’t even know what time it is.

“What time is it?” He asks, his hips bucking as her hand grasps him.

“We have twenty minutes before we have to be up for breakfast,” Nyota says. “Are you complaining?”

Len shakes his head. “Not at all, darlin.’”

*

They are two minutes late for breakfast, but it’s not like it matters. At least, that’s what Leonard tells himself when Jim grins at him with a mouth full of oatmeal.

“Bones! You look perky this morning.”

Leonard sits across from Jim and does not reply.

Jim waggles his eyebrows. “Is Uhura the reason for that perkiness?”

“Jim, you’re my best friend, not a fucking gossip reel. Leave me alone.”

Jim smiles. “It was worth a try.”

Nyota sits next to Leonard, a careful smile pasted on her lips. “Good morning, Captain,” she says. There’s only a small amount of animosity in her voice.

“Good morning, Uhura,” Jim replies, and there’s a strange look in his eyes. “Sleep well?”

“Yes,” she replies.

Jim looks from Bones to Uhura and back to Bones again.

“Huh,” he says. “I never would have guessed.”

Nyota stares at him. “There are other tables, sir. If all you’re going to do is make comments about my relationship, I will leave.”

Jim puts his hands up placatingly. “No, no, I’m done. So, got any plans once we’re earthside again?”

Bones nods. “We’re goin’ home.”

Jim raises his eyebrows as he scrapes his spoon across the bottom of his bowl. “I think I’m going to be stuck in some discretionary hearings or something. Georgia?”

“Yes.” Uhura buts in. “Georgia.”

*

Leonard and Nyota have to testify at the discretionary hearings too, but it’s only one day for them. They stand and clap for Jim when he gets his commission as captain of the _Enterprise_ , but don’t attend the afterparty.

Louisa is waiting for them on the front porch, her hands on her hips.

“It’s been awhile, Len,” she says. “Nyota, honey, you look exhausted.”

Nyota reaches for Leonard’s mother then, and hugs her like it’s been a hundred years. She feels older now, like she understands the wrinkles on Louisa’s face a little more than she did the last time she saw them.

Len takes his mother in his arms next, Louisa barely coming up to his chest. When he steps back, Louisa sniffs a little.

“Don’t scare me like that again, Len. When the newsreels started playing, I thought you were gone for sure.”

Len nods. There’s still tiredness aching in his bones.

“Go on to bed, now,” Louisa says suddenly. “Y’all look ready to keel over.”

It’s 1346, but Len and Nyota climb the stairs and collapse into bed still mostly clothed.

*

They spend the next week sleeping a lot. Louisa and Len make pie that Nyota eats in huge helpings. Nyota can cook, but her boyfriend and his mother seem to despise the thought of her touching anything in the kitchen.

“You might be family, but you’re still a guest,” Louisa says sternly when Nyota offers for the third time to make a meal.

“On Vulcan, guests always prepare the food. It’s like a thank you to their hosts,” Nyota says, her ponytail high and smirk even higher.

“This ain’t Vulcan, darlin,’” Len drawls. “Now sit your pretty little ass down and let me cook you some food.”

Nyota sits, unwilling to argue further. She has an excuse to stare at Len’s hands for an hour and a half. Louisa wants to hear about how her family is doing, anyways.

“I want to meet your mother,” Louisa says.

Nyota carefully swallows her mouthful of tea before replying. Len is watching her, his face inscrutable for once.

“I think that might be nice,” she says. For once, she doesn’t use her careful smile, but the one where her mouth twists and her eyes squint. It’s the most vulnerable Nyota ever is in public.

Len nods once at her and turns back to rolling out pie dough.

Nyota has always defined the parameters of their relationship. She always makes the first step and takes the last kiss from his lips. It’s not that he minds, not at all. It’s just odd to be in love with such a powerful woman, who could have anyone she wanted, and she chose Leonard H. McCoy.

She has never once pushed him about Jocelyn, never pressed on the yellow of his healing bruise. They haven’t even had a discussion about their future, because they haven’t needed to. They just know that the other will be on the _Enterprise_ when it ships out in two months. There isn’t any question that Leonard will leave Jim, and Nyota has quite clearly marked her territory on Leonard, so that’s all there is to it.

*

“Why did you choose me?” Len asks into the curve of her spine.

“Len, don’t ask stupid questions.” It’s dark, but Nyota shifts and turns over so she’s facing him.

“Nyota, you could have picked anyone. Anyone. I’m pretty goddamn sure there isn’t a single person in Starfleet that’s attracted to women who doesn’t want you. Why did you choose me?”

Her fingers splay across his cheek. “Because,” she says. “You make me feel like I’m home. Wherever I am, I want you there.”

“But how did you know? Why did you keep coming back even before you loved me?”

“Because,” she repeats. “The sex was so mind-blowing I couldn’t stop. It still is, you know. I’m kind of ruined for sex with anyone else after you, Len.”

“I still don’t know why you picked me,” Leonard admits. The sheets rustle as he adjusts the position of his thighs. “There are so many smarter people who speak so many more languages than me.”

“Leonard, you stop that right now.” Nyota sits up, her voice suddenly fierce in the darkness. “You want to know the real reason I stayed and made you my home?”

“Yes.”

“Because you don’t lie to me. You always treat me like I deserve the universe, and you offer everything you have in you to me freely.”

Leonard sits up too, leaning against the headboard. “I’m still not very good with words,” he says. “But I think I’d like to tell you about Jocelyn now.”

“Okay,” Nyota says, and she leans forward to kiss him.

He speaks haltingly at first, of Joss’s long blonde hair that she was so vain about. How they had met at prom when both their dates had ditched them; the laughter that trailed throughout their whirlwind courtship and marriage. His face is stone when he describes how draining she had been all throughout med school, claiming that Len was prioritizing his own schooling over hers, even though Joss had volunteered to work full time and go to night school. Leonard does not detail their fights, deciding to leave it at “She threw a plate at the wall the night she said she was divorcing me.”

“Len.” Nyota’s hand finds his and squeezes it tightly.

“She still said she loved me after we’d signed the padd. Claimed she would always love me. I don’t think I could love her anymore after the way she split me apart.”

Nyota slides her leg over Len’s hips and sits in his lap. “Len, I hope you know I’m never going to throw a plate at the wall.”

“I know,” Len says.

They move together, slow and sweet, the never-leaving seeping into the sheets beneath them until they cannot breathe in their togetherness.

The bruise is the color of his skin now. He cannot even place it if he were to look for it.

*

Being in space for five years is alright when they’re together, Leonard decides. It’s also somewhat better when Jim stops mooning over Spock and they actually get together. He still resolutely refuses to listen to Jim talk about their sex life.

“I don’t want to hear what you and that hobgoblin do in bed,” Leonard says, repeatedly. Sometimes Jim tells him anyways, and Leonard wishes that there was a safe way to bleach brain cells.

*

Nyota asks him in the second year, after Khan and all the horror that ensued, if he wants to have a baby.

Leonard stares at her for a full five seconds before he closes his mouth. “Now?”

“Well, not now, now. I would have to be pregnant first.” Nyota’s smiling, and it’s her five million credit smile, the one that makes him weak in the knees.

It’s not like Len hasn’t thought about having a kid with Nyota, it’s just that having a child on a starship seems like a terrible idea.

She laughs and smoothes the furrow in his brow with her thumb. “Is it still someday for you?”

Leonard thinks about their conversation on the quad, what seems like decades ago. “I think so,” he says slowly. “But a closer someday than the one it was a couple of years ago.”

“Alright,” Nyota says, and kisses him. “That’s perfectly fine.”

She doesn’t bring it up again, but Leonard thinks about it for three weeks before he informs Jim that he’s going to ask Nyota to marry him.

“Really?” Jim’s eyebrows are raised, but there is zero surprise in his voice. “How long have you two been together again?”

“Five years,” Len says, twisting the ring on his finger. “What if she isn’t the marrying type?”

Jim laughs and claps him on the back. “Bones, Uhura looks at you like there isn’t anyone else in the room. I think she’s the marrying type if it would make you happy.”

Leonard thinks about it for a further twenty-four hours before Spock approaches him.

“Jim informed me that you were considering proposing marriage to Nyota. He mentioned that you were feeling conflicted as to whether or not the lieutenant would even be agreeable to the idea of marriage. He suggested that I should use my friendship with Nyota to gain this information.”

Leonard stares at the Vulcan for four seconds. “I can’t believe Jim told you about that. I don’t need help proposing to _my_ goddamn girlfriend.”

“But thank you for offering,” he adds a moment later. “Tell Jim to stop trying to be helpful.”

Spock just nods and leaves the med bay, his hands tucked behind his back and his shoulders stiff.

*

Leonard doesn’t even know what kind of ring Nyota would like, but Christine and Nyota are friends, so he ropes Christine into going ring shopping the next time they have shore leave. Nyota looks at him inquisitively, but Spock engages her in some conversation about the translators on board, and she turns her attention away for long enough that Leonard and Christine can slip away unnoticed.

In the end, Christine isn’t that much of a help, really. Leonard knows that the first ring he sees is the one for Nyota. It’s a simple band, a platinum alloy with a small yellow stone in it. It’s not a diamond, and Leonard doesn’t speak enough of the native language to find out exactly what it is, but it’s pretty and it will suit Nyota.

*

Leonard carries the ring around in his pocket for a month, afraid that Nyota will think he only wants to marry her because she brought up having kids.

She almost finds it three times, because Leonard is terrible at keeping secrets. He finally decides all the dancing around needs to stop one day, and tells her that when she gets off her shift, he’s going to take a bath with her.

“Okay,” she says, her eyes dancing. “I’ll come straight to your quarters when I get off.”

Leonard never uses the tub in his bathroom, preferring the haste of a shower, but Nyota loves taking baths and soaking for hours. It’s not like he’s never joined her, but it’s rare enough that she knows it’s special.

He’s already in the tub when she enters his quarters.

Nyota stands in the doorway of his bathroom. “Eager beaver,” she says. It’s Leonard’s second favorite smile, the one where she knows she’s about to be very naked.

He watches her strip, still breathless with the knowledge of her body after all this time. When she joins him in the rub, the water rippling over her thighs, she shakes her head.

“You always look at me like I’m about to walk on water when I’m naked,” Nyota says. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked hundreds of times before.”

“Darlin,’” Len says, his hand clutching the ring under the water. “If anyone could walk on water, it would be you.”

There’s his favorite smile.

“You know it,” she says, and flips her hair dramatically.

His fingers work over the metal, warm from the bathwater. Leonard has no fucking clue how to do this. Jocelyn had been different. They hadn’t been naked, either. Nyota is soft and sharp in all the ways that Joss wasn’t, and it’s absolutely not that Len’s comparing Nyota to his ex-wife, because the only thing remotely similar between the two women is that they’re women.

“You’ve got a strange look on your face, Leonard,” Nyota says, scolding. “Did Jim tell you another sex story about him and Spock?”

Leonard shakes his head, his throat suddenly closed with emotion.

“I love you,” he says with all the fierceness he can muster.

“I love you too,” Nyota replies. “What happened?”

Len reaches for Nyota’s right hand and grasps it tightly. “I see red when I look at you,” he says, and it’s not what he wants to say.

“What? Are you mad about something?” Nyota’s face is covered in confusion.

“No. I mean- that’s your color,” Leonard says helplessly. He’s no fucking good at this.

“I am in communications,” Nyota says, her smile just as confused as her voice.

“That’s not what I mean either. You’re strength and compassion and ambition all at once,” he manages. “Shit- I’m terrible at this.”

Nyota shakes her head. “I love you too, Len. It’s fine.”

“Fuck this shit. Nyota, will you marry me?”

Nyota’s eyes widen and then dart to his hand that’s finally emerged from the water.

“Oh,” she says, her eyes shining. “Of course I will, Len.”

She lets him slide the ring onto her finger, and then her hands are twining in his hair and pulling him closer until they’re breathing the same air.

*

“You’re so cute when you’re trying to make a speech about love,” she murmurs into his chest. “I’m red, huh?”

“Yes,” Len says, his hand closing over hers. “I wasn’t sure you were the marryin’ type.”

Nyota smiles, the sleepy one that lifts her ears and wrinkles her nose.

“I wasn’t sure you were either, after Jocelyn. But I’m whatever you are, Len. I’m whatever the hell you are, and if you want to get married, that’s perfectly fine. No frilly wedding though. Let’s just have Jim do it the next time we get shore leave. I’ll get Sulu take pictures and we can send them home for our moms.”

Leonard had expected this, Nyota’s quiet commandeering of their wedding. He doesn’t mind at all.

“Whatever you want, darlin.’ I just want you.”

“Likewise,” Nyota says.

It’s a minute before Leonard laughs. “Jim said that you were the marryin’ type if I was. I can’t believe that boy actually had something insightful to say about Nyota Uhura.”

Nyota laughs, and it vibrates through his chest.

“Our captain is weird like that. You know he lets Spock win chess sometimes as foreplay, right?”

Leonard cringes slightly. “If you’re about to start talking about their sex life, I’m gettin’ out of this bath right now, woman. Don’t you start on me too.”

Nyota shakes her head. “You’re so easy to tease,” she says.

*

In the end, Jim has some stupid flu he picks up from the natives and has to stay isolated in the med bay. Leonard yells at him for a straight ten minutes and stabs him with five hypos before Nyota places her hand on his back.

“We’ll just get Spock to do it. It’s fine, Len.”

But it’s not fine. Leonard wants his goddamn best friend there for his wedding, even if Nyota wanted to get married on the pink beaches of Yarev III.

He turns to her. “Then get that hobgoblin in here. Jim is going to be here for my fucking wedding.”

Nyota nods. “I thought you might say something like that.”

Spock’s voice is just as flat as it normally is when he recites the ceremony, from memory of course.

“It is customary at this time for the couple to exchange vows or other meaningful words,” Spock says.

Leonard clears his throat and pulls the wrinkled holosheet from his pocket. Nyota looks at him expectantly. Her own hands are empty, but she probably has something memorized.

“Nyota, it’s my duty as a doctor to protect and heal,” he starts. His voice isn’t as strong as he wants to be, and he knows he’s nowhere close to eloquent. “But it’s my duty as your husband to love and support you. I can’t always promise to smell the best or to never lose my temper, but I can promise to never leave you. I want you, Nyota, and everythin’ that you are. I promise that I won’t ever ask you to be anythin’ but yourself. I want my someday to be with you.”

Leonard is absolutely not crying. The lights are bright, that’s why his eyes are wet.

Nyota is looking at him like he is the only person in the room. “Leonard Horatio McCoy,” she starts. She looks down at her fingernails, which she painted red last night for this occasion.

“I never hoped for anyone half as wonderful as you. I think I let myself believe that men like you only existed in fairy tales. Your steady hands and sure heart are the only home I ever want. I promise I will always come home to you. I promise that I will take care of you when you need me to, and leave you alone when you ask. I’ve known I wanted my someday to be with you for a very long time. I love you, Len, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you by my side.”

Spock’s tone of voice shifts slightly when he says, “If you desire to kiss each other, you may do so now.”

Leonard and Nyota do not make public displays of affection. She holds his hand in front of others maybe one night a month. It’s not a big deal, really, because they are more than handsy in private. But Leonard still hesitates before Nyota pulls him down to her.

“It’s our wedding, you fool,” she whispers into his lips.

Len decides it’s fitting to quite literally sweep his bride off her feet so he can get a better angle for their kiss.

Jim whoops, and Len knows without a doubt that Nyota is flipping him off behind his back.

*

They spend their honeymoon on Yarev III. Nyota swims a lot while Leonard turns up his nose at the green water and reads a medical journal in the shade. They go hiking, which is completely terrible, but Nyota is glowing the entire time she chatters away with their guide, which makes it maybe just plain terrible.

The sex is good, too. It’s leisurely, almost, as if they don’t have only four days to themselves while Scotty does some maintenance on the _Enterprise_. Nyota laughs when Leonard asks her if they should be having more sex because it’s their honeymoon.

“Len, it isn’t a contest. I’m having a good time with you, and that’s what’s really important here. I mean, if you want to spend our last day here in bed, I won’t say no, but it’s okay to not just spend our entire lives naked.”

Leonard smiles and shifts her hair off her shoulder, his hand smoothing down her back.

“Only one whole day in bed? Don’t tell Jim, or he’ll find a way to turn it into a contest.”

Nyota smirks into his mouth. “I’m not telling Jim shit about my sex life, Len. I sure as hell hope you aren’t.”

Leonard thinks about last year’s Christmas party, when Nyota got really drunk with Christine and Carol and Jim had dragged him off into a corner. He remembers only bits and pieces of that night, but he’s pretty sure he told Jim about the time he let Nyota fuck him.

Nyota’s eyes narrow. He can never keep this stuff off his face.

“What did you tell him?”

“I may have told him you fucked me,” Len says sheepishly. “I was really drunk, to be fair.”

Nyota yanks his hair slightly. “You aren’t drunk now,” she says firmly, mouthing at his jaw. “Will you let me fuck you again?”

Leonard a little embarrassed by how breathy his voice is around his yes.

*

Nyota doesn’t bring up kids again, letting Leonard decide about this one thing. It makes him a little worried sometimes, because Nyota always has something to say about everything. He feels like they’re in limbo for two years, their rings tethering them together.

Leonard finally decides in the last year of their mission.

“Nyota,” he says firmly.

They’re in bed, watching a holovid of some Orion soap Nyota likes and he tolerates.

“What,” she says, her eyes not moving from the screen.

“Let’s have a baby.”

Her eyes snap to him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Len says, his voice firm. “Why would I joke about that?”

Nyota shakes her head. “That’s not what I meant. I literally just got my contraceptive shot for the month last night. Why the hell couldn’t we have had this conversation a week ago?”

Leonard sighs. “I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Nyota says, her voice soft. “We can just start trying in a month, okay?”

“Okay,” Len says, and the padd drops to the floor sometime in the next half hour. Neither of them are sure exactly when, but Nyota does not offer an explanation when she turns it in for repair the next day.

*

Leonard is slightly terrified of becoming a father, if he’s completely honest with himself. He’s still ecstatic when Nyota skips her period and his scanner confirms their suspicion.

“I think I would need fertility treatments if I wasn’t pregnant after all of that,” Nyota says, and squeezes his hand.

Spock offers to give Nyota foot massages as her pregnancy progresses, which honestly weirds Leonard out a little, but their friendship kind of always has, so he doesn’t say anything. Besides, Jim is cool with it, so he should be too.

When Nyota is eight months along and waddling nearly everywhere, Jim puts her on a lighter shift schedule, which she promptly takes issue with.

“I’m not disabled, Captain,” she hisses. “I’m pregnant. My job requires sitting in one damn place for eight hours a day. Now put me back on my normal schedule.”

Jim raises his eyebrows but complies. He knows better than to argue with Uhura, much less a pregnant Uhura.

*

Leonard hems and haws about who’s going to deliver their little girl until Nyota just grabs his hand, their rings clinking together slightly.

“Len, stop. You’re going to deliver our daughter, and it’s going to be fine.”

It’s totally fine, actually, because Nyota just breathes through her nose the entire time she’s in labor. Spock holds her hand, unblinking. Leonard knows it’s meditation breathing that the pointy-eared bastard taught her, but it means he doesn’t have to listen to his wife scream, so he can’t be mad about it.

He nearly cries when their daughter comes into the world. He forces his hands to go through the motions of cleaning her off and cutting the cord, as he’s done a thousand times before. His own daughter is an easy birth, and he shouldn’t be crying, but he absolutely is.

Nyota’s crying a little too when Leonard places their daughter in her arms. His wife is sweaty and totally naked, and she’s the most beautiful she’s ever been when she’s holding their child. Spock looks slightly uncomfortable, but he and Nyota are best friends, so it’s not like he’s going to go anywhere.

“Look at her ears,” Nyota says, her voice full of wonder. She looks up at Leonard. “She’s a Joanna if I ever saw one.”

Leonard nods. His wife is right, as always. “Your last name or mine?”

“Both,” Nyota replies. Spock is inching out of the room, obviously trying to give them some privacy.

“Spock, don’t go just yet. Come say hello to Joanna.”

Nyota holds their daughter out to Spock, and he takes her gingerly. He traces one pale finger down Joanna’s brown nose, his breath hitching slightly when she coos.

“She is-”

Leonard doesn’t think he’s ever seen the expression on Spock’s face before. Is that a goddamn _smile_?

“-Beautiful,” Spock finishes. “You will be a good father, Leonard.” He says this without looking up, his gaze still transfixed on Joanna.

He hands their daughter back to Nyota, who smiles brilliantly at her friend.

Leonard asks, “Does someday still exist?” after Spock has left and the three of them are alone.

Nyota smiles her tired smile. “Of course it does, Len. Someday is happening right now. I just pushed a human being out of my vagina because I love you. Now take our daughter so I can sleep.”

*

If Nyota is red, Joanna is yellow. She’s a happy baby, even if she keeps them up half the night for the first year. But her curls and soft skin cry out for squishes and cuddles more often than Leonard would like to admit. Her baby voice sounds like sunflowers, he thinks. He can’t explain it and doesn’t even want to try. Joanna is just bright and joyous and everything he didn’t know he was missing. Her smile is the bright burst of sunshine when he steps onto Earth for the first time in five years and the color of her Uncle Jim’s uniform.

Louisa and Horatio are just as besotted with Joanna as he and Nyota are. Leonard still thinks of yellow when he looks at his daughter, who looks nothing like her grandparents. Nyota holds his hand while Joanna picks flowers for Horatio.

“Do you want another kid?”

“No,” Leonard says. “Joanna is enough.”

Nyota nods and leans into his shoulder. “I know. I just wanted to ask.”

*

If his wife is red and his daughter is yellow, Leonard doesn’t know what that makes him. He doesn’t really care.

Purple is just a color that Nyota sometimes paints her toenails.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the first thing I wrote in my google doc when I plot sketched this over a month ago: “Bones and Uhura huh? What the fuck is this shit what does it even mean why am i thinking about this?”  
> This was before I fully hopped on the Bones/Uhura train into the sunset, as you can tell. Anyways, the original fic was going to have a lot more angst than this, but I’m a sucker for fluff and it kind of devolved into this great romance after they were fuckbuddies. I had a lot of fun writing it, regardless, and I hope you enjoyed it!


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